The Aftermath
by Nevertheend127
Summary: The war is over, and they can take the time to find themselves and each other. (Four stories of the Aftermath)
1. Crescent Moon Darnel

Both Cress and Thorne get on seperate crafts to get home. After Cinder's coranation, everyone seems to split up- Scarlet and Wolf go back to their little farm in Roux. Winter rules as Queen Regent of Luna in Cinder's place. Jacin leaves Luna to work in curing Letumosis in third world countries. Thorne flies back to the states for his trial. He leaves again, almost immediately after he's cleared of all charges, and no one's really heard from him since. Cinder thinks he's returned to smuggling contraband, but Winter assures Cress he's probably just busy... with... things.

Cinder and Kai seem too busy to really stay in touch with anyone but each other. The last time Cress saw either of them, they were waving at her hurridly over a net-screen, scrambling around their shared kitchen for a last-minute breakfast before some big fancy conference. (Cress had forgotten it was morning where they were.) Kai's hair had been more disheveled than usual and Cinder's neatly-pressed dress was on inside out.

This serves as an endless source of amusement to Scarlet, who has never been able to adequately explain to Cress her confusing friendship with Cinder.

Needless to say, they do their best to keep tabs on each other.

Unlike everyone else, Cress doesn't stay in one place. She's been in a steel and silicone cage for most of her life, and idea of this great, open world is thrilling and terrifying in all the best ways. She sets up an account in Roux France, and visits whenever she drops by Wolf and Scarlet. (As Sybil's ward, she inherited all of the Miras' wealth somehow.)

Before she can talk herself out of it, she gets on the first transport ship that will take her and doesn't look back.

She does look down a lot, though. _Stars_, they're up so _high_.

* * *

The Captain thinks about Cress. A lot. More than he'd like to.

He's made off well with the reward money after singlehandedly saving Luna. (Cinder helped.) He even got his ship fixed- which is saying a lot, since the loveable Cyborg managed to rip the wing clean off during a botched landing attempt.

Now he's wealthy and respected, and his parents suddenly want to talk to him again. On the plus-side, the adorable Queen Regent, Winter, sends him comms and messages all the time, thanking him, asking how he is, wondering if he and Cress are married yet.

She's just teasing. Probably.

Thorne doesn't miss Crescent, he really doesn't.

* * *

Cress can't believe how big it all it. She flies and sails and walks across the world, all the time thinking, _this has to be it, this has to be all there is_. But there's always more.

There are tropical lands thick with rain and hibiscus, sun-baked red deserts and doll's villages thatched with straw. There are lands where everyone calls her 'sister,' where Univs are useless and hard work is money. She finds places where her 'abnormalities' are considered gifts from the gods, and where no one cares she is an unwanted Lunar Shell.

Everything she sees is beautiful, and everywhere she goes she misses him.

* * *

_She's too good for you_, Thorne reminds himself. _She's been through hell- last thing she needs is someone like you in her life._

* * *

Cress tries whiskey, remembering Thorne telling her it was his favorite. It tastes like cheap purfume and gasoline, but she manages not to spit it out- she really wants to be able to tell him she likes it, when she gets back.

* * *

Thorne goes back to crime and petty theft, for a little while. Impersonates a superior officer, steals some priceless artifacts- the usual. Cinder gets him out, as usual, and curses his name for a solid ten minutes before hugging him and getting back on her ship. Kai stands in the hanger door, looking solemn, but Thorne can see his shoulders shaking. He's laughing at them.

So this is their normal, he guesses.

* * *

There's a woman by the river in Thailand who makes Cress a beautiful shawl to wear around her hair. It's deep crimson, patterned with golden moons and silver suns. Cress wraps it around the scar on her neck, the little dot of ridged flesh from where Aimery shot her during the battle of Artemesia. She still has a few wires in her jaw from that bullet.

Every time she looks in the mirror, she remembers the feeling of Thorne's hands on her, palms pressed heavily over the gushing bullet wound that would have ended her life.

Cress hesitates. Then she pulls it off, wrapping the shawl around her shoulders instead. Saring sunny hair and marred skin to the world.

* * *

He once let a tiger out of it's cage at the zoo.

Something like that- something so pure and noble and serene didn't deserve to be locked in a cage. Nothing deserved to be trapped. He was nine. He just reached through the bars and slid open the lock with the stolen key-card.

Thorne remembers his parents and the management being angry as hell. But mostly he remembers the look in her eyes- the Tigress- when the bars swung open and she rushed out into the world.

Free, afraid, alive.

* * *

Cress drinks spice tea with orange blossoms from wooden cups and dances barefoot in the grass. Work is plentiful and easy in most places. She sings and dances at inns in exchange for room and board, and people toss her little bronze coins with holes in the center. She writes some of her own songs, most of which are about Earth and it's beauty, but there are a few about her friends thrown in with the mix. Little strings of prose and poetry she'll lull and croon softly to herself, about fast ships and ball gowns and Captains with dreamboat eyes.

* * *

He gets a comm from Cress. The message pops up on his port-screen- a short, bubbly blend of greetings in various languages, telling him she's been travelling through South America- and how is he? She hasn't seen him in forever.

He writes back that he wants to see her before he can really figure out what his fingers are doing.

* * *

The world is beautiful, but dark as well. For every good person Cress meets, there's another shadowed stranger, someone who hates her for what she is. There are some people who seem kind at first, but try to hurt her later.

Sometimes they're not strangers at all, but friends she's made along the way. Tall, handsome young men who remind her a lot of Thorne, but turn out to be nothing like him at all. They're mean and demanding and sometimes violent.

Once, she has to call Jacin to pick her up. She's been left on the side of a desert highway by some people she had paid to get her to New Cairo. (They stole her purse and her new golden earrings, and left her alone in the dust.) She knew Jacin was in the area, and he flies an hour out of his way to swoop by and pick her up. Cress is so grateful she sobs. Jacin complains endlessly about having to get her. He tells her to shut up at least a dozen times, but he also fusses over her like a mother hen and weighs her down with blankets and univs before dropping her off with her host family in New Cairo.

Cress reminds herself to thank Winter for putting up with him so long- she has no idea where any of them would be without him.

* * *

_"Captain, I think I'm in love with you."_

Thorne replays those words in his head, wondering if she still thinks she means them.

* * *

Cress figures out what love is. Love is when a mother lark protects her baby lark. Love is when two friends share a harvest. Love is when Wolf and Scarlet read together on the couch. Love is when Jacin dove into Artemesia's lake to save Winter. When Cinder and Kai sit together on the Emperor's throne in their jeans and t-shirts.

Love is what she still feels for the Captain.

* * *

They meet at a hover-train station is Los Angeles. Cress bounds off the train with luggage in both hands. Her pastel-patterned dress flutters around her knees.

Cress throws herself into his arms, bags clattering to the floor, and he lifts her up and spins her around. Her tip-toes just graze the tops of his shoes.

There are a few people cheering. He can't believe it's been a whole year.

"I missed you." She pulls away, her freckled nose crinkling in mirth. Her ears are pierced and her blonde eyelashes are fringed with a tiny bit of makeup. There's a tribal-looking cord around her neck, decorated with a little charm of dove feather down and clay beads. She looks different and the same, a little bit older and a little bit wiser.

"Missed you too." He admits grudgingly, squeezing her shoulder.

She's put on some weight, he's glad to see- still skinny enough to collapse if someone sneezed on her wrong, but she's not so thin she looks sickly. Her pale skin has a healthy sort of glow, her hair is neatly trimmed and curled to her shoulders. Her fingers are calloused and the nails are torn, but she tells him not to worry, there's a story behind that.

He isn't worried. Not anymore.

Thorne picks up one of her bags, his free arm sliding around her waist and pulling her against him.

"Did you have fun seeing the world?"

"I did. But it's good to be home." She confesses, laughing. "The world was wonderful, but I'm tired of running around. Think it'd be nice to put down some roots."

"Then stay." He suggests, and Cress giggles again, jumping up to peck him on the cheek.

"I fully intend to." She promises.

Cinder always said they'd find their way back to each other in the end. It took an awful lot of soul-searching, on both their parts. But he's better for it, they're better for it, and Thorne knows that this is It. The It everyone always talks about, the One, as stupid as that sounds.

He holds her hand to help her down from the platform, and he doesn't let go the rest of the way home.


	2. La Vie En Rose

**A/N- Hello! So sorry for my prolonged absense. (standardized testing and finals- ugh!) but here it is, chapter 2 featuring Scarlet and Wolf. I have to warn you, there's a bit of a time skip in the middle (i know some people don't like that) so I hope that's okay.**

**I really hope you like it! Winter and Jacin are next, and I've saved Cinder and Kai (my personal faves) for last. Enjoy!**

* * *

The moments before Levanna falls are the loudest.

Kai has been shot twice, Thorne is missing, Cinder is bleeding unspecifically and Wolf is dying.

Wolf is _dying_, and Scarlet can't even find joy in knowing that Levanna's empire is crumbling because she can't think of anything but the slashes and rips that cover his body in crimson.

Kai's chest-wounds look pretty bad, but Scarlet's been told by the med-techs that Wolf's injuries are worse. Shortly after Jacin revived Winter, she was uprooted to make room for Ze'ev Kesley, who had been caught in the crossfire between two troops of the queen's soldiers.

He went out looking for her, and was ripped to shreads by gunfire.

Scarlet is sitting on a plush couch in the waiting area, which is at this point soaked and sticky with her blood. There's an android trying to hastle her away so it can clean up the mess, but Scarlet gets so frustrated that she eventually kicks in it's sensor and probablly causes permenant damage. Oh well. She'll pay to replace it if she's alive tomorrow.

The fighting isn't over- not yet. Scarlet's not sure why she expected it to end quickly. All she knows is that ten yards away, Wolf is being opperated on behind closed doors and he might not survive the hour.

She bites down a wail of distress, trying to staunch the bleeding in her side with her discarded hoodie. The infirmary is full, and she's been pushed out into the hallway to tend to her own wounds. A med-tech tried to offer her pain relievers earlier, but Scarlet had refused- better to conserve them for Wolf and Kai- and Thorne, of course, when he shows up.

"I'm so glad he's dead."

Jacin's voice, and Scarlet recoils at the words, fear shooting through her chest.

She looks up and sees Jacin, lingering in the hallway amid a crowd of medics and androids. He is carrying Princess Winter, who is unconcious but otherwise looks unharmed. Her head lulls peacefully against his armored shoulder, her fingers hooked into the front of his shirt as he cradles her close to his chest.

Jacin sees Scarlet's terrified expression and hastens to reassure her- "I meant Aimery Park. The Thaumaturge. Not Wolf. Kesley will be okay. Aimery was trying to... I had to..." He trails off, shifting Winter in his grasp. "The bastard tried to get at Winter." he explains quietly.

"She'll be alright." Scarlet's tongue feels numb around the words. "She's tough."

Jacin gives Scarlet a small smile, then returns his attention to finding an empty bed for his princess.

Ze'ev Kesley.

Zee.

Wolf.

She loves him, and he's dying, and there's nothing she can do about it. Scarlet has always hated that feeling of helplessness, but this is something totally different.

This is a feeling that shouldn't exist.

It's not the can't-eat, can't-sleep, all-consuming love she reads about, or the kind that Cress sings of in all her Second-Era ballads.

Just love. True, realistic, rage-inducing love that drives her crazy in all the best and worst ways.

They had barely known each other. But they knew just enough to become best friends, just enough to know they were a team.

He's never told her he loves her.

He's never had to.

The sobs clenching at her chest take her by surprise. Scarlet gasps, hugging her knees to her chest and burying her tears in a tangle of red curls. "Wolf."

"Scarlet." A girl's voice, small and shaking, and Scarlet slides over on the bench to make room for the little Shell.

Cress's soft, butter-blonde curls press against her neck as she leans into Scarlet, and Scarlet isn't sure if the girl is trying to give or recieve comfort in the sudden embrace.

"He'll be okay." Cress tells her forcefully, and again, Scarlet doesn't know who she's trying to reassure. "Don't worry."

This is strange. Scarlet has always made a point of being nice to Cress, and she's always liked her. But they've never really bonded aside from the occasional pleasantries while preparing dinner aboard the Rampion.

But now, Scarlet lets herself begin to cry, curling against Crescent with their heads pressed together, knobly knees tangled and tears falling rhythmically into their laps.

"Do you want me to sing?" Cress asks, throat raw with tears.

An odd request, but Scarlet is in no position to argue or deny her- they've slumped against each other on the couch, almost back to back, with Cress's little hand wrenched tightly in her grasp.

"Please." Scarlet nods.

Cress has songs for each of them- for herself, she sings 'Sweet Crescent Moon.' Kai and Cinder share a song, an old Lunar lullaby called 'Ready to Question.' For Thorne, she half-sings, half-shouts a nameless, hearty folk-song about liquor and enjoyment youthful stupidity. Winter has several, mostly about animals, which include 'Yellow eyes,' 'Tawny Wings,' and 'Little Bird.'

And finally, commemeratively, Wolf and Scarlet had an old French love song_\- "La Vie En Rose."_

Cress's voice is melodious and beautiful, but her French is attrocious, and every time she begins to drawl out the song, Scarlet implores her not to translate and leave it as it is.

"...And though I close my eyes, I see La Vi En Roses," Cress sings softly in Universal.

Wolf loves that song. He had hummed it to her on the Rampion, the first night after they got her back. She remembers so clearly being wrapped up in arms under the heavy blankets, squirming because he and the covers were scortching hot. "Space." She had whined, and he had grinned at her in the dark, always wanting to tustle and wrestle and play, even in the cramped darkness of their shared bedroom aboard the Rampion at three-thirty in the morning.

She'd give anything to be pestered by him now.

"... every day words seem to turn into love songs..." Cress yawns, pausing for a moment before finishing the songs. "Give, your heart and soul to me... and life will always be... La Vie En Rose."

Scarlet can hear in Cress's voice that she's falling asleep, and Scarlet thinks she'd do well to follow.

Lulled away by memories of a beautiful voice and the sharpy, heavy pull of pain in her wounds, Scarlet is asleep within moments.

* * *

Scarlet wakes with a jolt, reaching out for Cress in the dark.

It's not until her fingers reach Wolf's shoulder that she realizes she was dreaming- or remembering, really.

Almost two years ago, she and Cress sat curled together on that awful, uncomfortably couch in the Earthern Satelite infirmary and cried themselves to sleep, mourning friends who never died.

Everyone is okay now, and Scarlet reminds herself of this until her heartbeat has begun to settle.

Wolf isn't dying in a hospital with his lungs full of blood, crying out her name in his sleep. He's nuzzled against her back, his arm curled around her middle and his nose in her hair, breathing deeply.

Thorne isn't missing in action or being held captive by Levanna's minions- most likely, he's on the other side of the world in the Eastern Commonwealth, where it's mid-morning and Cinder is giving him a lecture after having to bail him out of prison again.

Speaking of which, Kai is safe as well. He's probably coercing Cinder to eat something, discreetly stuffing another protein bar into her sachel because he's known her long enough to predict when she'll get hungry/grumpy. Probably rearranging and adjusting their schedule to fit in time for Thorne's antics, never growing impatient but always watching amusedly as Cinder struggles to manage the subordinate 'Captain.'

Now, Cress is travelling in South Africa somewhere and Winter and Cinder rule over their allied countries in peace.

But those few hours, before the storm had cleared...

Scarlet shudders just at the thought.

A few hours after Wolf came out of surgery, Cress and Cinder went with a team to retrieve Thorne from Levanna's soldiers. Cinder and Thorne both came back unscathed, much to everyone's relief- but Cress had been shot clean through the neck, in the space just below her jaw. She'd lost blood. A lot of it.

Her death had seemed impending and certain. Thorne had cried shamelessly on Cinder's shoulder on the same couch Cress had comforted Scarlet, blaming himself and feeling as useless as she had hours earlier.

Cress had pulled through, thanks to Jacin, and the only damage to this day is a red scar beneath her ear and some wires in her jaw.

Everyone is fine. Not perfect, but alright, alive, happy.

Scarlet smiles into her pillow, feeling Wolf's arm around her waist.

Not perfect. But so, so happy.

Wolf and Scarlet had first wandered back into Roux after a few months of recovery and repiaration of Luna and the Eastern Commonwealth. Most of what this meant was that they had to clean up the damage Levanna caused. Scarlet had briefly served as an ambassador and a representative of Earth in the Lunar court, which meant spending six weeks on Luna (a planet she now hated passionately) surrounded by people who had been her captors and her tormentors.

But she had been with Winter, who she had grown to love like a sister, and she had finally met Wolf's parents. This had been enough to make her departure for Earth almost sad, and she had sworn to return with Wolf to visit Winter, who gets lonely now that Jacin is on Earth, and the Kesleys, who insist she refer to them as 'Mom' and 'Dad.'

She and Wolf aren't actually married, but they don't seem to care much about that.

As for Scarlet and Wolf, they change every day.

Some mornings, they'll wake up and abandon all of their chores to play with each other like children. There's a lot to be done on a farm, and even though they do fairly well with it, there's a good bit that doesn't get done. Most of this is owed to Scarlet refusing to be dragged out of bed before noon. But even after that, they tustle and playfight on their newly-made bed, toss bits of pastery at each other, get in waterfights and squabble and end up watching movies or reading together on the couch.

Some mornings, they'll bicker endlessly about anything- sometimes it's a deep, controversial topic about politics or society- but more often than not, it's about what to call that bit of plastic at the end of a shoelace, or how many more tomatoes grow with a certain pesticide, or Thorne's weird relationship with his ship.

On those days, they could make headlines, shouting at each other from opposite ends of the porch about the stupidest things, just for the sake of an entertaining argument. They snap and squabble and occasionally curse at each other, but it's all in good fun, as they assure Emile and anyone else who happens to stop by. Lively debate keeps things interesting.

Some mornings, they drive each other nuts. Or else they make pleasant conversation or laugh or display sides of their personality they didn't know existed.

Wolf sighs against her hair, and Scarlet snuggles back against him, thinking about their story.

A betrayal, a battle, a boy.

Everything that has lead her to him, to her friends, to her life and the role she's played in these recent chapters of history- it's all been painful. Everything from losing her finger to watching him die in that hospital.

Her relationship with him is built and based on problems, and she'd be lying to say there aren't times that they really, truely fight. They're different people in a complicated, ever-changing world. Sometimes they loose their patience or their humility or their sense- may well have lost their minds for all the trouble between them.

But they never loose their certainty. Their love for each other, for the team they've built, the people they've saved the whole damn world with.

That kind of love goes down in history.

* * *

**Please forgive any spelling mistakes- I don't have microsoft, so no spell-check! **

**Also, is it normal to be 16 and in love with the Lunar Chronicles?**

**One last note- how excited are you guys for 'The Princess and the Guard"?**

**Thanks for reading! 3**


End file.
